


One Good Thing

by Molly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Time, M/M, Schmoop, silverbullets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2012-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-02 19:38:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Sam's acting a little weird.  Again.  Dean's got a couple of theories.  All of them wrong.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Good Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the silverbullets challenge comm on LJ, for amber1960's prompt: _basorexia: 1. an overwhelming urge to neck or kiss 2. a strong craving or hunger for kissing._ Many many thanks to laurificus for the quick last-minute beta!

In a surprisingly sturdy shack near the heart of a haunted forest (lumberjacks: multiple, deceased, now unwillingly and permanently discorporated) Dean crashes onto what amounts to a double-wide cot. He's caked with soot from head to toe, one arm sleeveless and blistered, the rest of him singed, battered, aching, and just about half-drunk. Sam lands beside him, boneless; it's almost more than the bed can take. "Guess they built this thing to last," Dean mutters at the ceiling; he's pretty sure Sam's already asleep.

But Sam says, "Lumberjacks," and it kind of makes sense. Before they died and went nuts, these guys knew their wood. Dean thinks that through one more time, slower, and wheezes through a short series of choked laughs that burn on their way out.

"What?"

"Wood," Dean says, and cackles again. Sam sighs -- he coughs in the middle, which kind of ruins it, but he sees it through. Dean appreciates the determination. That's how Sam rolls.

"Sleep," Sam orders. He claws his way closer to the head of the bed, so his legs aren't dangling off into space, hitches his arm over Dean's chest, and pulls him close. His mouth presses into the side of Dean's throat, and Dean goes still and quiet and doesn't move a muscle, doesn't take his next breath. A shiver starts where Sam's lips are and travels along Dean's spine until it lands somewhere in his middle, tying his stomach in a neat little knot of terror.

Sam squeezes Dean closer, says, "I mean it, Dean. Go the fuck to sleep." Dean huffs out an annoyed, nervous breath and does as he's told. 

~

Now that Sam's got his mind back, it's tempting to fall into the whole saving-the-world routine again. But Dean just can't muster up the drive for it. It's not that he doesn't want the world to be saved; he's just content, for now, to wait a bit and see if maybe somebody else wants to do it. It's not like they're the only hunters in the world. Let somebody else figure this one out; the Winchester martyrs are officially on fucking vacation.

Sam closes his eyes and sticks a pin in the map in the middle of Colorado; so that's where they go. They find an empty stretch of road, and a fairly nice motel. They sit there for a week, switching back and forth between ESPN and the DIY network, ordering pizza by the truckload and washing it down with all the cheap booze they can fit in the room's built-in mini-fridge. Sam sleeps a lot, and Dean doesn't. Because when Sam sleeps, he presses himself along Dean's side like a leech and nuzzles into his neck. His hot breath skates along Dean's skin, lighting up all the hopeful circuits inside that think more good things are on the way, very very soon. Dean lies still and quiet in the dark, Sam's breath easing over him, Sam's arms around him, Sam everywhere, and there's a spark in Dean's chest, somewhere. In some cold and long-forgotten furnace deep inside, Dean's pilot light flickers back to life. 

~

Around the corner from the hotel there's a Denny's that serves steak and eggs and coffee 24/7. It's three a.m. when they settle down for lunch -- gravedigger's hours, though they haven't actually dug anybody up in quite a while. Sam gets scrambled eggs with tomato and cheese, toast, and coffee; Dean gets coffee, coffee, and a little more coffee for when he finishes his first two. His stomach doesn't handle the road food as easy as it used to, especially on top of the alcoholic's breakfast he drank a few hours ago. He pulls out a notebook while Sam's scanning the local newspaper, and starts making a little list. 

"What are you working on?" Sam asks, peering over the edge of the crossword puzzle. 

"My memoirs."

Sam chews on his toast while he thinks that over. "Well, they're still making Saw movies. I guess there's a market."

Dean snorts, turns the page and flips the notebook over, so Sam can't read it upside down. He doodles a little black car that turns into the Impala, then gives it some racing stripes and flames shooting out the tail pipe. Sam finishes his breakfast, pulls the notebook out of Dean's hands, and a minute later, the Impala is driving down the curve of a black-and-white rainbow, dotted highway lines separating every other row. 

"That's beautiful, Sam," Dean tells him, and reaches out to grab the notebook back.

"Uh-uh." Sam holds it away, and fuck if the monster monkey God gave him for a brother doesn't still know how to use his reach. Dean slumps back against the cracking vinyl cushion of the booth behind him and pretends he cares more about his coffee than his privacy. He does it so successfully that Sam rolls his eyes and gives the notebook back. "No need to cry about it," he says, like he's offended or something. 

Dean rolls his eyes back, picks up his notebook and drops a twenty on the table. "You done?"

"You in a hurry?" Sam watches him with wide, interested eyes, warm and sane, no flames in there, no devils singing off-key. "What's up?"

"I'm tired," Dean says, and Sam ducks his head and smiles. "What are you grinning at?"

"Nothing," Sam says. "Nothing at all." He drops another five next to Dean's twenty and stands up, hands in his pockets, smile getting wider by the second. He doesn't meet Dean's eyes. "C'mon," he says. "Let's get you to bed."

~

They go bowling; it is _hilarious_. Sam can split the eyelash of a demon over his shoulder while running all-out in the opposite direction, but he can't hit a bowling pin to save his life. Ball after ball lands in the gutter while Dean racks up strike after strike. Sam complains that the shoes are too tight, they didn't have his size, it's messing up his concentration. But Sam recently ganked a ghost in a loony bin he'd been put in for being legit _crazy_ , and the distraction of Lucifer playing ping-pong with all his lost marbles hadn't even slowed Sam down. 

"I'm too tall for this game," Sam tells him for the third time; more than anything else in the world, Sam hates to lose. "It screws up the visual angles."

Dean's not even sure what that means, but it cracks him up so bad he has to lean against the car to catch his breath. He hasn't had a drink in over twelve hours, and the sobriety is weird and disorienting. There's a bizarre clarity to the air and the night and everything, Sam is there next to him and he's all sharp edges and lines -- none of the blurred soft focus that makes it so hard for Dean to hold onto him. A guy could cut himself on those lines, and Dean reaches out to test it, skates a hand over Sam's jaw. It _does_ cut, Dean _does_ bleed, but only on the inside. 

"Dean?"

He drops his hand, and Sam catches it; brings it back up to his face. "It's okay," Sam says. "I'm still here." 

"I know that."

"Do you?"

"I have eyes, Sam."

"Most of the time they're staring at the bottom of a bottle."

"I'm stone cold sober right now."

"What's that like for you?"

Dean laughs. "Kind of horrible," he says, and tosses Sam the keys to the car. "I'm done with it. I'll drink; you drive."

~

Dean opens his eyes after a night of no rest, sun across his face far too bright. He's not ready for any of it -- the light, the world, the small room with the lavender print wallpaper. And Sam. He's definitely not ready for Sam.

But there Sam is. The curve of his back is broad and sleek, warm under the sun streaming in through the window by the bed. He's hunched over, like he's clutching his stomach or his head, and for a second Dean is frozen in place by terror. Something else is wrong, something different, the same something, whatever -- the wheels of the world are turning again and Sam's receding into the distance and Dean can't reach him, can't even call for him, can't even catch his breath. Something is _wrong_ , except --

Except Sam is there, still there, and his hand comes up and turns a college-ruled page. And then another.

Dean remembers how to breathe. It's just hard to put that knowledge into practice. He sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed, sitting close enough to see what Sam's reading. He swallows his heart back down where it belongs and says, "Dude, stay out of my stuff."

Sam turns around, his eyes unreadable. "If you didn't want me reading it, you shouldn't have written it down."

"I thought maybe you were grown up enough to recognize the concept of privacy." Dean rubs a hand through his hair, and tries to bleed some of the adrenaline out of his system with indignation. 

"Who knew you were such an optimist," Sam says. His voice is distant, uncertain. "I can't believe you made a list."

Dean shrugs. "Figured I could work it like a case."

"The case of what's wrong with me?" Sam's eyes are readable now; they say he's pissed. "Or should I say, what's wrong with me _now_?"

"Sam--"

"Whatever."

"It's not like--"

"No, you know what? I don't care, Dean. I don't care if there's something else fucking me up. I don't think there is, but if there's something screwing with me now, if that's what this --" he waves at the extremely limited space between them "--is, then I don't care. I like it. You do whatever you want, but I'm good."

"Would you just shut up for a minute?" Dean leans forward, elbows on his knees, and scrubs his hand over the stubble on his jaw. Barefoot, unshaven, hasn't even brushed his teeth yet and he's already fighting with Sam. Maybe he's still in Hell. He looks around for his shoes; he's pretty sure he should be wearing shoes for this conversation. 

"'Sex pollen,'" Sam quotes, not at all shutting up. Of course not. Dean pulls on yesterday's jeans anyway, yesterday's socks. "'Siren's venom. Witch's curse.' Is there even such a thing as sex pollen?"

"It's in Dad's journal," Dean says, ruthlessly sharing the horror of all the mental images that thought brings with it. 

"'Basorexia.' Is that really a word? What does that even mean?"

"Wanting to kiss," Dean says, because if he doesn't explain it, Sam's just going to Google it. "A lot. Pathologically."

"I can't believe you have a list of stuff you think could be wrong with me. And I never actually kissed you," Sam says defensively, "not even once."

"Who said you did?"

"Dean. Please, man, look at me." 

So Dean does; he has to, when Sam sounds like that, that fine edge of desperation in his voice that he always gets when he wants the last bowl of cereal or the last Twizzler or for Dean to let him send himself to Hell. Sam's eyes are huge, wide with too much fear and courage, and he takes a step closer. "I just... it's been so long since I could just be your brother, Dean. I didn't mean to freak you out. I just wanted to be close, that's all."

"You didn't freak me out."

Sam laughs; he may be angelically sane now, but it still comes out kind of crazy. "Yeah? This is you calm and rational," he says. "Right."

"I mean, you didn't freak me out, Sammy, okay?" Dean shakes his head. "You just have to keep pushing, don't you? You just can't leave anything alone."

"What's this about, then? What's got you studying me like one of our spooks?"

"It's not you, all right? Can you get it through your giant skull that not every single thing is about you? It's about me." Dean looks away. "That's a list of stuff that could be wrong with _me_."

Sam is silent. For a long minute, Sam is just silent and still, and finally Dean has to look at him, even though he's a little terrified of what he might see. He looks at Sam, and finds Sam hasn't moved, his face hasn't changed much, except his mouth is hanging open and his eyes look a little vague. 

"Sam?"

"Sorry," Sam says instantly. "I just. Really?"

"No," Dean says, but without a lot of hope; it's way too late. "I take it all back."

"Basorexia?" Sam tilts his head. "Really?"

Dean swallows. Then he nods. "Yeah."

"I hadn't noticed."

Dean shrugs uncomfortably. "I've been resisting."

"Because you thought you were infected with sex pollen." Sam's starting to smile again, his eyes dancing. 

Dean can't help it; he can feel the heat in his face, and knows he's going red from forehead to nipples under that irritating, all-seeing stare. "Shut up."

"Dean --"

"No, I mean it. Shut up."

Sam has never listened to Dean. Not when they were kids, not when they were growing up, not now. He pushes in, right into Dean's space, radiating heat like a furnace. He presses his lips to Dean's throat, right over his pulse, then to Dean's mouth. He kisses Dean, light and easy, like he doesn't want Dean to startle and bolt. He doesn't need to worry; Dean's not going anywhere.

"There's nothing wrong with you," Sam says against Dean's lips. He stops talking long enough to make the kiss serious, almost long enough to make the kiss horizontal, and then he says, "there's nothing wrong with me, either. Okay?" He goes back to his work while Dean thinks about it, letting himself get kissed along his jaw, on the curve of his neck, his collarbone. His mouth, again -- Dean sighs into it, indulging himself, letting Sam say whatever he wants as long as he keeps doing what he's doing. Sam's tongue is warm and soft, careful like Sam is _never_ careful. Dean bites at him, and Sam pulls back with a little yelp.

"We're not at the prom, Sam," Dean tells him, ignoring the glare. "If you're gonna do it, do it like you mean it."

Sam's eyes light up. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"You don't think we should maybe consult a witchdoctor or an herbalist or something? Make sure you're in your right mind?"

Dean closes the space that's opened up between them. Because he can; because Sam is _Sam_ , and his, finally and irrevocably, in every way that matters and some that probably don't. His. "Don't care if I'm not," he says. "I guess if we're both crazy, it kind of cancels out."

"Well, we're not." Sam leans in and kisses Dean like _Sam_ , hands on Dean's face, rough, wanting, _expecting_ Dean to just give him everything like he always has, and God help him, like Dean always will. He's happy to let Sam take what he wants, so happy the thud takes him by surprise when Sam's back hits the wall. Dean didn't even know he was pushing. 

"Sorry," Dean says, but he's not; not really. Not at all. 

"We get to have this. There's nothing wrong with either of us. This is a good thing," Sam tells Dean, "okay? One good thing we get to have." 

"Yeah?"

"Well." Sam grins. "Until something eats us, anyway," and Dean laughs and kisses Sam again while he can. 

That's as good as things get, these days. That's more than good enough for Dean. 

 

~

.end

Feedback is always welcome! :)


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